Volume 10 , Issue 5

Opening of Oklahoma (April 22, '89)

We also learn a bit more history of the Opening of Oklahoma (April 22, 1889) from Vol. 2, A Standard History of Oklahoma, pp. 603-636, by Joseph B. Thoburn.

The appearance of the proclamation of President Harrison setting a date for the formal opening of Oklahoma to settlement under the homestead laws of the United States, was eagerly awaited by the prospective settlers in many places throughout the West, and especially along the borders of the adjoining states, where many of the former "boomers" were residing.

The assembled multitudes included people from practically every state in the Union, attracted by the novelty of the situation. There were people of all classes and conditions of life, farmers, mechanics, laborers and professional men, composing the principal elements, though there was an unduly large proportion of adventurers, gamblers and sharpers. Peace and good order generally prevailed, for most of the people were disposed to be civil and good natured. Although there were many who came to the border because of their curiosity, or who were actuated by a mercenary or speculative spirit, the vast majority were moved by an impulse to seek land and build homes. As the people who prepared to make the race for the privilege of filing on the most prized quarter sections of land had come from many different directions, so they also posted themselves on all sides of the unassigned lands.

Many moved southward from the Kansas border and posted themselves on the southern boundary of the Cherokee Outlet, on the North. Others gathered on the line of the Iowa, Kickapoo and Pottawatomie-Shawnee reservations, on the East, while still others took up their stations in the valley of the South Canadian, on the South, or on the line of Cheyenne and Araphao country, on the West.

Some settlers became anxious and disregarded the conditions set forth in the rules prescribed for the opening of the lands to settlement. Eluding the vigilance of the cordon of troops by which the bounds of the district were patrolled, slipped in and concealed themselves at points conveniently near to the best lands so that they would not have far to go when the legal hour of opening arrived. Many of these people, who were called "sooners," from the circumstance of having entered the country too soon, were removed by the soldiers. However, it was found impossible to apprehend all of them, so there were many who succeeded in concealing themselves and thus eluding arrest and removal.

Most of the "sooners" who succeeded in staying in the country and filing on claims, were later dispossessed as the result of contests before the land office authorities or the courts. A few were locally reputed to have held their claims, making final proof by perjury, but it was a noteworthy fact that these had not prospered. The word "sooner" seems to have taken its place as the official nickname of everything pertaining to Oklahoma.

The Southern Kansas towns nearest to the Oklahoma country continued to be overcrowded until the morning of the opening day. There was but one line of railway in the Oklahoma country then -- that of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe, which passed through the center of the tract from North to South. Fifteen passenger trains left Arkansas City between daylight and 1 a.m., on the day of the opening. Fully 10,000 people wanted to board the first train out, a large part of them having been without lodging the night before. Standing room was at a premium in every coach, the platforms and steps being occupied, and many men rode on the roofs of the coaches. The first train ran to the northern boundary of the unassigned lands, where it stopped to await the noon hour. As the other trains came up successively, each was stopped as close as possible behind the one preceding.

The people who had encamped on the boundary of the promised land prepared for the noon day race. Some being in wagons while others were in buggies, buckboards or road carts, with many on horseback and not a few on foot. All these formed in line, extendiing along the boundary as far as the range of vision extended, both ways.

During those hours of weary waiting, strong men felt the grip of nervous tension such as they had never felt before. A sensation that had been not inaptly likened to the feeling of the soldier in his first battle. Even the horses seemed to tire of waiting as if a portion of the eagerness and impatience of driver or rider had been imparted to them. The cavalrymen were posted at long intervals, and set patiently on their steeds while waiting to give the signal to start the race.

The fateful hour of noon approached; everyone took his place in line, and then a strange hush fell upon the waiting people as they fixed their gaze upon the trooper who was to give the signal. The faint notes of a distant bugle came drifting up the line and then the trooper out in front fired his carbine. Then arose a mighty shout, which had been likened unto that which was heard when the walls of Jericho fell, and the great race was on in all of its intensity.

It was estimated that 100,000 people entered Oklahoma on the day of the opening, April 22, 1889. Fifteen thousand were said to have spent the first night in Guthrie and fully 10,000 at Oklahoma City, and others of the new cities and towns were peopled in like proportion. Nothing in the history of American pioneering -- not even California in '49, nor the Pike's Peak country in '59 -- equalled or even remotely resembled the rush into Oklahoma on that April, 1889 day.

The press of the newly settled country had its nucleus in one paper in Oklahoma City (The Times) and one in Guthrie (The State Capital), the initial numbers of which were printed outside the limits of the territory, before it was possible to bring in and set up printing plants. The first paper actually printed in Oklahoma after the opening of 1889 was the Guthrie Get-up, a three-column folio, which was printed on a job press, with Will T. Little as editor and publisher.

The galaxy of Oklahoma's first newspaper men was a notable one, including a number who were counted as veterans and others not less talented who were younger in years. The newspaper business, like other lines, both professional and commercial, was overcrowded at first and there were a number of consolidations and suspensions in consequence.

Most of the pioneers of 1889 were people of very moderate means and not a few of them were in straitened circumstances. Under such conditions, it was not strange that the improvements made on many of the claims that first year were of a very modest and inexpensive character. Some of the settlers absented themselves from their homesteads during part of the following fall and winter in order to find work in some of the neighboring states. Some sold relinquishments to their claims and left the country, little, if any, better off than they were when they made the race. Others, who were no better off in the beginning, held on in spite of poverty and discouragement and ultimately achieved a competence.
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